Trust only movement. Life happens at the level of events, not of words. Trust movement.

&mdash Alfred Adler (1870-1937)

Saturday, July 16, 2005

Masculinity, premier livret

I hope you had a chance to read the two articles I posted earlier this week (Mike Boone's "Ring of Fear" and Janet Bagnall's "Homolka was handled with kid gloves"), 'cause I'll be taking them down in a few days. Although I feel I've committed no ethical violations of copyright by posting them in their entirety, I am violating the law. I figure putting them up for a short period--in this case, ten days--splits the difference.

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Had a good time last night. The folks came over and the four of us sat around the table, played cards and snacked on yummy hors d'oeuvres. Props to my baby for talking me into it, despite my exhausted protestations: it wound up being a really nice way to start the weekend.

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In irritating but sadly unsurprising news, economists from New York's Skidmore College and Lewis and Clark College in Oregon have found that "men appear to be given preference in admissions as university applicant pools become more female."

I'll append the complete CanWest article in a minute, but first let me just say that, as a man, I'm so fucking glad that this issue is being taken seriously with such lightning efficiency. Western women had to struggle for centuries before the doors to higher education were creaked open for them and decades more passed before they were made to feel remotely welcome (and I'm using "welcome" in the broadestfuckingsense of that word).

That's why I'm excited--no, elated--that the minute there's even so much as a suggestion that significantly fewer men than women might be entering higher education, university presidents, admission committees, social scientists and legislators go fucking bananas. That's what I want when my interests are threatened, dammit: mass panic in the goddamn streets. I say, bring on the hysteria! Bring on the knee-jerk reactionary gobbledygook! Do whatever the hell it takes to guarantee my rights, you pork-bellied, jelly-skinned halfwits.

[/venom](*)

And another thing: notice how the article doesn't mention university EXIT stats? Wonder why? I'll tell you why: the differential closes significantly. Depending on where you look and what qualifiers you're using, the ratio of graduates goes to about 55-45 in favour of women (at best) to 60-40 in favour of men. In other words, many more women than men are starting undergraduate programs in North America, but that isn't maintained in graduation rates...

Men appear to be given preference in admissions as university applicant pools become more female, a provocative new study has found.

Raising the spectre of affirmative action for a group not historically disadvantaged but increasingly under-represented in undergraduate classes, the study examined admissions data from 13 liberal arts colleges in the United States and estimated a tipping point for male preference kicks in when the female applicant pool reaches between 53 and 62 per cent. The study found "clear evidence" of a preference for men in historically female U.S. colleges.